All hands on deco

OK, I admit it. I packed a pink, strappy, satin Jean Harlow nightdress for my weekend at the Burgh Island Hotel at Bigbury-on-Sea in Devon. And I read an Agatha Christie novel on the train on the way down. I'm really only one sad step away from shingling my hair and wearing a feathered headband.

Unfortunately, Burgh Island, due to its history and romantic position, cut off by the tide twice a day, does tend to have this effect on visitors, but it is one that its new owners, Deborah Clark and Tony Orchard, hope to keep under control.

The hotel was built in internationalist style in 1929 by a wealthy industrialist, Archibald Nettlefold, who used it largely to entertain his friends from the world of theatre. No?l Coward came for three days, and stayed for three weeks.

Agatha Christie, inspired by the setting (but evidently not visited by the muse, if And Then There Were None is anything to go by), wrote two of her novels in the beach house. After a rather less glamorous reincarnation as self-catering apartments, the Burgh Island Hotel was bought in 1985 by Clark and Orchard's predecessors, the Porters, who restored the interior to some of its former art deco glory.

Clark and Orchard, six months ago a lawyer and chartered surveyor respectively, seized the opportunity to buy and run the £3 million property last October. They plan to take the refurbishment further but are conscious of the need to avoid parody. When it opens this Friday the public areas will shrug off the winter dust sheets to reveal a Cinderellalike transformation, and the first of the revamped suites will show its new colours, with the other 14 turning their backs on a dingy cream in favour of individual looks by April. You can sleep in the divinely comfortable beds secure in the knowledge that no one else will be cowering under the same eau-de-nil satin bedcover against the howling wind and hurtling waves.

But you shouldn't go to Burgh Island expecting the European model of glossy art deco - a kind of Savoy-on-Sea. Orchard sees it as "more of a Health and Efficiencystyle British deco - slightly bracing".

Clark and Orchard have inherited what was, frankly, a motley collection of pieces - ranging from authentic 1930s dressing tables and wardrobes to the Biba interpretation of deco. In some of the suites it results in a style that shifts between Hollywood glamour and Granny's spare bedroom.

But, in a way, when we are threatened with suffocating under a blanket of "good taste" - limestone bathrooms becoming as much of a clich? as the avocado suite - there is something refreshingly quirky about the new Burgh Island. And there are certainly enough glamorous parts of the hotel for it to qualify as an outpost for urbanites - it could easily become an alternative Babington House for refugees from minimalism.

Clark and Orchard have employed a local decorator, Paul Wheeler (who thinks it too poncy to call himself an interior designer but has a portfolio to rival many a top London counterpart), to work on the refurbishment. The ballroom has been restored to Gaumont glamour with a recessed ceiling and stepped angular pelmets in bronze, grey and pink. Approached by a flight of wide steps flanked by the original black Vitralite panels, this goes way beyond seaside deco in terms of sophistication.

IN the Palm Court room, kitted out with Lloyd Loom furniture, Wheeler and a local artist, Steve Dooley, have installed a mosaic fountain with peacock-feather motifs inspired by the original peacock-domed glass ceiling.

Because cocktail hour coincides with bedtime for her three- and five-year-old boys, Clark does not see herself doing the "hostess thing". She will certainly not be swanning around in flapper dresses, flourishing a cigarette holder: "I had enough role-play in the City." Guests will still be encouraged to dress up in the evening, though not in fancy dress, unless they have a strong compulsion.

"We want people here to enter into the spirit of the thing and to have fun" - but this does not, Clark stresses, mean Agatha Christie Murder Mystery weekends. "It's just a matter of doing something that makes you feel glamorous. You can actually wear a DJ here and not feel like an idiot." Inevitably, Clark and Orchard want to attract people who like the creature comforts of Islington but won't panic when the tide comes in. "It's an adventure coming here, a more exacting experience than the country house hotel, where you know what to expect. You have to accept being cut off twice a day, but it does give you your own private kingdom." The famous sea tractor which transports guests across the water can't operate when the weather conditions are too stormy, which adds a frisson of uncertainty to out-of-season visits.

Clark swaps her spiky Jimmy Choos for trainers to take me on a tour of the island, starting with the Mermaid Pool, a natural rock pool which they plan to convert to a Deauville scene with decking and jetties. She is constantly bubbling over with ideas - "what do you think about giving the guests a nip of whisky on the tractor coming over, Tony? Or maybe we should have nice plaid blankets for them to wrap up in?" "Wouldn't it be fabulous to just cover this with a glass box to make one really special bedroom?" she says of the roofless stone ruin at the summit, where the "huer" used to watch out for shoals of pilchard - "you could just have a big bed covered in sheepskins."

Most of their ideas, however, are grounded in practicality - they plan to sell their own vintage-style swimming costumes, but using modern fabrics which don't make quite such a feature of the male anatomy. Burgh Island has quite enough thrills of its own.

Way to go

BURGH Island Hotel (01548 810514) has suites from £125: dinner, bed and full English breakfast. First Great Western (08457 000 125) has returns from Paddington to Totnes from £24 (Apex seven-day advance purchase). A taxi to Bigbury costs from £28.